Feb 28
2005
Anyhow, here are lots o' pics from the evening. You can check them out as a Flickr slideshow. Enjoy!
Feb 25
2005
Alright, enough kidding around, time to get serious now, here are some more quotes and numbers from another round of mobile articles, hope you enjoy.
Education
8. Rheingold, Howard. "M-Learning 4 Generation Txt?" TheFeature. November 4, 2004.
Alexander prefers "mobile" to "wireless" or "ubiquitous" because "none of these terms really grasp one key feature of the new milieu: the modeling of subjects as creative, communicative participants rather than as passive, reception-only consumers. We lack a term for describing the world as a writeable and readable service, encompassing mobile phones forming communities, P2P handheld gaming, moblogging, and uploading to RFID chips. For now, and to retain the educational focus, I’ll use m-learning."9. "South Korean Students Burned for SMS Cheating." MobileMag. December 3, 2004.. . .
Blogs and wikis were yesterday. Moblogging is today. Tomorrow, Alexander anticipates the arrival of sensor networks, digitally tagged objects and places, augmented reality, location-based knowledge, and something Alexander calls "swarm learning."
"Perhaps we are beginning to see the emergence of learning swarms," Alexander ventures: "We already know the precursors, in the form of interested learners who appear at campus libraries and museums, driven by an experience that excited them, such as a film, a book, or a conversation. Now the socializing powers of mobility and wirelessness could expand this drive into collaboration. An interested learner could ping a network or site for learning engagement: digital objects, digitally tagged materials, learning objects, instructors, other learners and instigators.
After tracing SMS messages by phone numbers and matching them with test times, investigators were able to uncover evidence of over 350 South Korean students that were swapping answers back and forth on their mobiles last week. This may not be the end of it either, they suspect up to 600,000 students in total to be involved in this type of text-message cheating. Others are being questioned for paying college students to take exams in their place using fake identification.Cord Cutting
10. "Home phones face uncertain future." BBC News. October 22, 2004.
According to the study, more than 45 million people in the UK, Germany, US and South Korea now only use a mobile.Social/Cultural Implications. . .
In the US and Germany many of those interviewed said they used the fixed phone because it was more reliable than a mobile handset and let them get access to the net at relatively high speeds.
11. Ranger, Steve. "Mobile Backup Failure Puts Friendships in Peril." Personal Computer World. February 22, 2005.
More than one in three UK mobile phone users worry that they would lose touch with friends and contacts if they lost their mobile phones, research has claimed.12. Lee, Carol E. "The New Social Etiquette: Friends Don't Let Friends Dial Drunk." The New York Times. January 30, 2005.Over half of mobile users do not have a separate address book, and one in five use their mobile as their only record of phone numbers, according to research commissioned by mobile network services company Intervoice.
But the study also claims that over half of mobile users have either lost or had a phone stolen within the past three years, and a quarter have lost two or more phones in the same period.
But unlike its predecessors, drunk dialing usually limits itself to times long after the close of business and beyond the daily commute. It is in those dark hours of late night and wee hours of early morn, when most people have retired their cellphones for overnight charging, that intoxicated revelers flip open their cellphones and dial into regret.13. Naughton, John. "A Generation Lost in its Personal Space." Guardian Unlimited. January 23, 2005.
And the interesting thing is that this student is typical of his generation. The proportion of young people who never venture out in public without first putting on headphones is astonishing. And yet one rarely sees anyone over 40 similarly equipped. This will change with the maturing of generations who have grown up with headphones welded to their ears. And as a result, our concept of social space will change. Imagine the future: a crowded urban street, filled not with people interacting with one another, but with atomised individuals cocooned in their personalised sound-bubbles, moving from one retail opportunity to another. The only sounds are the shuffling of feet and the rock muzak blaring from the doorways of specialised leisurewear chains.. . .
We haven't really begun to explore the social significance of mobile telephony, but already some things are becoming clear. The first is that the technology provides some people with an opportunity - perhaps even an imperative - to ignore the fact that they are in a public space. This is shown by the readiness with which they enter into phone conversations that in earlier days would be seen as requiring privacy.
Feb 24
2005
Location: Antarctica (http://www.antarcticabar.com)
Date: Saturday, February 26th (4 days after my real birthday)
Time: I'll be there at 9:30
Address: 287 Hudson Street (just below Spring)
Now, without any further ado, here are the answers to all your party questions:
Q: When is the party again?
A: It's this Saturday, Feburary 26. That's right, two days from now.
Q: What time is it going to start?
A: Well this one has been up in the air, so I haven't had a really good answer up to this point, but I do now. It's going to start at 9:30. That's right 9:30. Don't be late. I'll be there early if you want to get there early, though.
Q: What about being fashionably late? I don't want to be the first one there.
A: Fuck fashionably late. It's silly. I'll probably be there at 8:00, so you can pretty safely bet you won't be the first one there. So just get there on time, alright?
Q: Where is it?
A: Antarctica (http://www.antarcticabar.com). The bar is located at 287 Hudson Street (just below Spring).
Q: So how do I get there?
A: Easy. There are three ways. You could walk. You could take a cab. Or, you could take the subway. If you choose option three, here are the directions:
Take the C or E train to SPRING ST. Surface at Spring St. and
6th Ave. Walk two blocks west to Hudson St. (away from SOHO and
towards the Hudson River).
OR
Take the 1 or 9 train to HOUSTON ST. Surface at Houston and Varick St.
Walk one block west to Hudson St., turn left, then 4 blocks south to
Spring St.
Q: Is there food at this bar?
A: Nope, but we can bring it in. If people want to order pizzas, or anything else, we can do so.
Q: Why should I come?
A: It's my birthday party. But more importantly, you'll be able to drink a lot of booze for little money. It's going to be $20 all you can drink, starting right around 9:30. For those that are too lazy to do the math, that means from 9:30 - 11:30 you can drink anything but top shelf liquor without paying the bartender. After that you pay again, but if you're a liquor drinker you will be pleasantly surprised at the size of the mixed drinks at the bar (they're in pint glasses).
Q: When is your actual birthday?
A: It was Tuesday, February 22 and I turned 23.
Q: What kind of asshole writes an F.A.Q. for their birthday party?
A: This kind of asshole. The kind of asshole who keeps a website (http://www.noahbrier.com) and writes lots of boring stuff expecting people to read it.
Q: How will I know when the party's over?
A: If I walk out of the bar really angry for absolutely no good reason, my night is over. I guess if you do the same, that'll be a good sign.
Q: Is anyone else from Norwalk coming?
A: There seems to a small caravan coming, talk to Kim, I think she knows the lowdown.
Q: Why am I still reading this?
A: I'm not really sure. But there are still important questions to be answered.
Q: Can I bring friends?
A: Yeah, why not? Everyone is more than welcome.
Q: What kind of bar is it?
A: It's a dive bar. That means pool table and jukebox. No dress code. Even Dave can wear his sandals and get in.
Q: Can you tell me who I should consult about how to properly ridicule you for this email?
A: I would suggest Josh, he's quite good a ridiculing people and you can be sure he'll hate this email. In fact, he'll probably hate it much more now that I've written that. But you could also talk to Jeff, Dave and Lou, they'll all be more than happy to help you make fun of me about this, or anything else (especially http://www.noahbrier.com).
Q: How many times are you going to plug your website in this?
A: Three. Check out http://www.noahbrier.com
Q: Will you really go eat tacos at San Loco afterwards?
A: Nope.
Q: Will Lou?
A: Probably.
Feb 23
2005
I was contacted because of my November, 2004 American Demographics article titled, "Coming of Age". In that article I examine the impact of mobile technology on youth. I talked about the big stuff like texting and ringtones, as well as some of the lesser talked about issues, such as cord-cutting (living without a land line, like me) and possible social ramifications of growing up with your own private phone and number.
Since mobile technology is definitely going to be a section of this presentation, I'm going to use this entry to start organizing some of my ideas and links. Feel free to comment on anything you find interesting.
Demographics:
1. Brier, Noah R. "Coming of Age." American Demographics. November, 2004.
"According to youthKnowhow, a London-based company that specializes in understanding youth behavior and applying this to develop better product and marketing strategies for wireless and new media companies, about 25.7 million kids in the U.S. between the ages of 5 and 19 are cell phone users. That's 40 percent of the population in that age range. As you might imagine, the balance tilts toward older kids. About 82 percent of 15- to 19-year-olds own mobile phones, versus 35 percent of 10- to 14-year-olds, and just 1 percent of 5- to 9-year-olds. By 2006, though, youthKnowhow projects that mobile penetration will reach 52 percent of the 5- to 19-year-old population. Add 20- to 24-year-olds to this mix and the yearly cell phone spend for 2006 could reach $16.7 billion among the under-24 demographic."2. CEA. "CEA Survey Gives Insight Into Generation Tech: Exploring The Illusive Teen Consumer." CE.org. December 14, 2004.
Further showing the purchasing power of this age group, the number one item that teens have purchased with their own money was a cellular phone, with 23 percent of teens having bought one for themselves.Texting:
3. Ki-hong, Kim. "New Forms of Online Communication Spell End of Email Era in Korea." Chosun.com. November 28, 2004.
The ebbing of email is a phenomenon peculiar to Korea, an IT power. Leading the big change, unprecedented in the world, are our teens and those in their 20's. The perception that "email is an old and formal communication means" is rapidly spreading among them. "I use email when I send messages to elders," said a college student by the name of Park. For 22-year-old office worker Kim, "I use email only for receiving cellphone and credit card invoices."4. Brier, Noah R. "Coming of Age." American Demographics. November, 2004.. . .
The ebb of email is confirmed by a diminishing trend in pageviews, a tabulation of frequency in service used by email users. Daum Communication, the top email business in the country, saw its email service pageviews fall over 20 percent from 3.9 billion in October last year to 3 billion in October this year. By contrast, with SK Telecom, the nation's No. 1 communication firm, monthly SMS transmissions skyrocketed over 40 percent in October from 2.7 billion instances last October. Cyworld, a representative mini-homepage firm, witnessed its pageviews multiply over 26-fold from 650 million instances in October last year to 17 billion in October this year.
Among 5,500 mobile users surveyed by the Yankee Group, of the 80 percent of teens who have text messaging capabilities on their cell phone, 69 percent report sending or receiving at least a message a week. Of the 69 percent that text, almost 1 in 5 reports sending over 21 messages a week. "If we look at what you can do with your phone beyond voice, the most ubiquitous feature on a phone is text. If we look at teens and the youth market in general who have embraced IM on the PC, text is a natural," says Yankee Group senior analyst Linda Barrabee.Multimedia:Wyndham Lewis, director of youthKnowhow, points to the American Idol TV show as a way to illustrate the popularity of text messaging in the U.S. "In the American elections in November 2002, 18- to 24-year-olds cast 8.6 million votes, compared with 16 million votes for American Idol." What's more, Lewis explains that even though young people could easily have voted for free using a land line, the majority chose to place their vote by text message. This is not entirely surprising, as more and more of America's youth are choosing to make their mobile phone their main voice communication medium. "Increasingly, people are just giving out their mobile numbers," says Lewis. This practice could have a huge impact on the telecommunications industry in the years to come.
5.
Cord Cutting:Multimedia phone penetration is highest amongst those under the age of 18 with 67 percent. This is as opposed to 63 percent for 19-24 and 57% for 25-34.
37 percent of under-18s use photo messaging at least once a month. This compares to 29 percent when looking at all photo-capable mobile users.
Not surprisingly, under-18s are also most likely to download & play music (35 percent), download games (31 percent) and game with another player (16 percent).
(All data from "Mobinet Index 2004".)
6. Kinzie, Susan. "Colleges' Land Lines Nearing Silent End". Washington Post. February 12, 2005.
Across the country, wired phones are becoming obsolete. Although not many colleges have eliminated them, "almost every major school is evaluating it," said Jeri Semer, executive director of the Association for Communications Technology Professionals in Higher Education.7. Woodyard, Chris. "Some Offices Opt for Cell Phones Only." USA Today. January 24, 2005.. . . .
It wasn't that long ago, a generation perhaps, when students had to wait in line to use communal phones in dormitory hallways. Five years ago, just over one-third of U.S. college students had cell phones on campus, according to a national survey by the market-research firm Student Monitor. In the fall, nearly nine of 10 did.
In a move that other companies might soon follow, Sprint announced Monday that about 8,000 employees at Ford Motor will jettison their desktop phones and use cell phones exclusively.Now that I have some of these quotes organized in one place I'll start to comment on them. Feel free to tell me some of your thoughts, I'd love to know what you guys think about current mobile trends. I added the numbers to make it easier to comment on specific items, so jump right in.
Feb 17
2005
The other day I promised to think more about Digital Lifestyle Aggregation (DLA). Well, I've given it some more thought . . .
I think the first step in creating a DLA is figuring out how to successfully take social software off the computer and move it into the real world. Services like YellowArrow and Dodgeball are early attempts to bring social software into physical space with the help of mobile phones. But I think before we even begin with DLA we need to have a better picture of just what the goals of social software are. Obviously, Friendster has far different objectives than del.icio.us does. But are there any fundamental truths that exist across different kinds of social software?
I recently read an entry from October from Adina Levin titled "Social Software: What's New". It includes some great points and is well worth reading, but there were two big aspects of social software that Adina covered especially well:
1. "What's new [in social software] are the design patterns that build community and sense at a variety of scales at once."I'll address both seperately:2. "Social software tools make it easy to create content in little, addressable chunks, and they add semantic meaning (wikis names) and social meaning (the weblog of a person or group)."
1. In theory social software does more than just connect you with other people. We have lots of other tools for that, including email and IM. (In fact, thinking about it now, this may be my problem with Friendster . . . but that's a story for another time.) Good social software allows users to create a community while at the same time giving them something in a way they couldn't get it elsewhere. For instance, using del.icio.us allows me to publish links and share them, but it also allows me to make better sense of these links using the collective intelligence of the group by looking at things like tags. (I may be completely wrong about what Adina meant, but I think this is it.) Thefacebook does this by taking an already close-knit college community and giving them the tools to interact and communicate in new ways. It's different than Friendster because it takes communities that already are grounded in physical space (a college campus) and provides them with new tools that capitalize on existing networks. Thefacebook is more than just about talking to one another, it centralizes a number of useful services (like group email lists) and uses that information to help users interact with their physical space (in this case, the college campus). (Alright, I know that's not really clear . . . but I'm still working on this stuff, I'm thinking it out as I write, so cut me some slack.)
2. By creating addressable links, social software allows you to annotate your digital life. Audioscrobbler handles my musical side and Flickr handles the pictures. When you put all the pieces together you have a fairly accurate representation of me, broken into bite size, directly linkable, chunks.
I think the goal of social networking sites is to become the center of this digital existence. Essentially Friendster or Thefacebook want to be your whole public self, linking to these other pieces that make it up. They want to be online DLAs. Unfortunately, none have really been able to become this.
One reason for this is the usefulness of most social software. A recent Many-to-Many post included this insight:
“How will this software get my users laid� should be on the minds of anyone writing social software (and these days, almost all software is social software).Immediately I thought of an entry I read on Cult of Mac Blog a while back titled "ITunes Gets You Laid". Apparently Tony Fadell, who runs the iPod group, gets a lot of emails from college-aged people thanking him for helping them get laid.“Social software� is about making it easy for people to do other things that make them happy: meeting, communicating, and hooking up.
"When they publish their playlists to Rendezvous networks in their dorms, other students surf those playlists to get an idea what people are like.Out of this, I believe, comes two other important features of social software.So, late at night a guy sitting in his dorm may hear a knock on the door and, opening it, find a girl who loves their playlist. Tony gets mail from guys thanking him for this hidden feature in the iPod."
1. Give people something they really want (like helping them get laid).2. Make it simple to find (if people can't use it, how will it help them get laid?).
So now I can finally get back to the DLA. What it needs to do is take all this information spread across all these digital networks, aggregate it in one place and make it portable. Once portable users need to be able to use that information without complex interfaces to help them get laid.
It all seems so simple when it's written out.
If only I could figure out how to do it.
Feb 17
2005
He is without qualifications for that [hands-on experiments in human biology], and makes no pretensions to being anything other than what he is, a computer scientist who has taught himself natural science. Aubrey de Grey is a man of ideas, and he has set himself toward the goal of transforming the basis of what it means to be human.Essentially he's an outsider taking a completely different approach to a familiar problem. Fairly quickly into the article I started to make a connection to another article I had read a while back. After doing I quick search online I was able to track it down. The article was from the September issue of Wired. It's titled "Scientific Method Man" and is all about Gordon Rugg, who cracked the 400-year-old mystery of the Voynich manuscript. The Voynich manuscript is, "a hand-lettered book written in an unknown code that has frustrated cryptographers since its discovery in an Italian villa in 1912." What's so impressive about Rugg is that Rugg isn't a code-breaker or mathematician, he's a psychologist. Cracking the Voynich was an intellectual exercise testing a theory he has developed. He calls it the verifier approach and it's a way to overcome seemingly impossible obstacles. Essentially the approach is a three-part proccess that can be used in nearly any field. It involves "watching how they work and think, testing their logic, and uncovering ways to help them solve problems."
Rugg saw an opportunity in the Voynich to test the verifier approach.
As he read about the Voynich and began applying his method - amassing knowledge about a problem and assessing the kinds of expertise applied so far are steps one and two - he saw that no one had seriously explored the idea that the book was a grand hoax.So that's just what he did. And he solved it. Just to put things into perspective, the article included this:
How impregnable is the Voynich? During World War II, US Army code breakers - the guys who blew away Nazi ciphers - grappled with the manuscript in their spare time and came up empty. Since then, decoding the book's contents has become an obsession for geeks and puzzle nuts everywhere.So how did everyone miss it? It seems that all of these experts let some nobody come in and beat them to the punch because they got comfortable. It's a problem everywhere, but often most recognizable in education.
This "expertise gap" is rife in academia, but few recognize it, let alone know how to correct for it. It starts with the best of intentions. Institutions want top-notch people, so they offer incentives to attract and groom experts. Young grad students learn early that if they want to carve out a niche, they must confine their interests to a narrow field. It's not enough to work in spinal cord regeneration; it must be stem cell-based solutions to the problem. That's great if a researcher just happens to stumble on a perfect stem cell cure. But as specialists get further from their core expertise, the possible solutions - what's been tried, what hasn't, what was never properly examined, what ought to be tried again - get even more elusive.Getting back to de Grey for a minute, he hasn't solved anything yet, but it's hard to deny the similarity between the approaches of both men.
Having become interested in biology after marrying a geneticist in 1991, he began poring over texts, and autodidacted until he had mastered the subject. The more he learned, the more he became convinced that the postponement of death was a problem that could very well have real solutions and that he might be just the person to find them. As he reviewed the possible reasons why so little progress had been made in spite of the remarkable molecular and cellular discoveries of recent decades, he came to the conclusion that the problem might be far less difficult to solve than some thought; it seemed to him related to a factor too often brushed under the table when the motivations of scientists are discussed, namely the small likelihood of achieving promising results within the ÂÂperiod required for academic advancementâ€â€careerism, in a word. As he puts it, “High-risk fields are not the most conducive to getting promoted quickly.â€?No matter what, de Grey has certainly made a lot of noise and been noticed. It's worth thinking about where else the verifier approach may be successful.
I think Rugg and de Grey just might be onto something here.
UPDATE: Just read the Nerve.com interview with Malcolm Gladwell and realized that he's basically taken a verifier approach. Gladwell says, "Having no formal science training actually freed me up to ask the dumb questions, which are often the most important ones."
Feb 17
2005
For those that don't know about The Gates it's a huge "art exhibit" in Central Park consisting of over 7,000 orange gates with hanging fabric. The whole thing supposedly cost the artists, Christo and Jeanne Claude, $20 million. For more info, check these sites out:
1. Christo and Jeanne Claude: The Gates
2. A great breakdown of just how the artists came to their $20 million price tag.
3. A satellite image of Central Park with The Gates.
Feb 16
2005
For whatever reason it's taken me a very long time to finally go check out 37signals' kind of new project, Ta-da List. Essentially it's just a site that lets you create easy to manage to-do lists that are visually pleasing and allow you to check things off and keep track of what's been completed. I've been using them for a couple days now to keep track of work to do as well as movies I want to watch and I'm just in love with it. It's all incredibly simple, basically text and a check box. But why do you need more for a to-do lists. In fact, the tagline at the top of the page reads: Make lists and get stuff done. Tada!Well put.Simple, sharable to-do lists. It's just what you need and nothing you don't.
Oh, and while you're at it, check out their excellent blog Signal vs. Noise.
Feb 15
2005
Let's take a look at consumer A. This consumer goes to Amazon.com and does a search for Creative - one of the Napster supported music device makers - and picks up a 20GB player for $249.99. Let's assume he keeps the device for three years, paying Napster all the time. That's $538 for the Napster service, bringing the three-year total to $788.19.Seems like a fairly simple argument to me. Rob Pegoraro puts it even more simply in a Washington Post article:Consumer B types iPod into the Amazon.com search engine and finds a 20GB device for $299. Apple doesn't offer a subscription service, so this customer has to buy songs at the 99 cent rate or at $9.99 per album. Subtracting the price of the iPod from the $788, consumer B would have $489 left over for music. That's roughly worth 489 songs or 49 albums.
We posit that during this three-year period both Consumer A and Consumer B will actually end up with close to the same number of songs on their devices. Customers do not, as Napster suggests, pay $10,000 to fill their iPods with 10,000 songs just because the capacity is there. They take their existing music, CDs and MP3s, and put that onto the device first, then later add iTunes songs as they go along. A Napster customer would have a similar mix of old music and new downloads.
The big difference here is that after the three years are up, Consumer B has something to show for his investment. He still owns the music. If the Napster customer stops paying for the service, his music is all gone. He's paying $179 per year to rent music. This isn't high quality stuff either. It's DRM (digital rights management)-laced, low bitrate slop.
Consider this example: I have been purchasing CDs for about 20 years now, in which time I've accumulated about 300 of the things. At an average of $15 each, I've spent $4,500. Now suppose that, instead of buying those CDs, I could have opened up a Napster To Go account back in 1985. My total bill would be $3,600 and counting -- and although I might have accumulated a larger, more diverse collection, I wouldn't own any of it.Now that Napster's math has been debunked, what else is there to learn from Napster To-Go? Well, a Boing Boing reader had this to say about Napster's $15-a-month deal and the RIAA claims of being hurt by every download:
Another aspect of the Napster to Go model is that it shows that the RIAAs claims of a lost sale for every download to be demonstrably false. If you can download an unlimited number of songs via napster and play them for as long as you continue to subscribe, then the maximum loss the RIAA suffers from a single downloader cannot exceed $15/month no matter how many songs a person downloads.A great point. I can't help but wonder how the RIAA would respond to that one. Clearly there's a different message being sent by these subscription services. Maybe the average person doesn't buy more than one album a month anyway ($15), which is why music downloading has not actually hurt CD sales. Maybe Tower Records' bankruptcy has less to do with downloading and more to do with the fact that their music is overpriced. I would also love to know how specialty CD shops are doing. I know that New York City's Other Music always seems to have people in there.
So what's really going on here?
While we're on the topic of heavy-handed organization's, check out the notice the MPAA left of newly shut down LokiTorrent. In all caps it says, "YOU CAN CLICK BUT YOU CAN'T HIDE." That's followed by:
There are websites that provide legal downloads. This is not one of them.Are they serious?This website has been permanently shut down by court order because it facilitates the illegal downloading of copyrighted motion pictures. The illegal downloading of motion pictures robs thousands of honest, hard-working people of their livelihood, and stifles creativity. Illegally downloading movies from sites such as these without proper authorization violates the law, is theft, and is not anonymous. Stealing movies leaves a trail. The only way not to get caught is to stop.
Feb 11
2005
Now that I've sold you, here are the details:
Location: Antarctica (http://www.antarcticabar.com)
Date: Saturday, February 26th (4 days after my real birthday)
Time: I'll be there at 7:30
Address: 287 Hudson Street (just below Spring)
Subway: Take the C or E train to SPRING ST. Surface at Spring St. and
6th Ave. Walk two blocks west to Hudson St. (away from SOHO and
towards the Hudson River).
OR
Take the 1 or 9 train to HOUSTON ST. Surface at Houston and Varick St.
Walk one block west to Hudson St., turn left, then 4 blocks south to
Spring St.
So come on down and tell your friends. Everyone's invited. It's got a pool table, a jukebox and lots of booze. If people are hungry we could order some pizzas (there's also a deli next door). It should be a good time, and at the very least, you will be able to watch me in a fairly incoherent state.
If you read this site and we haven't met, you're absolutely invited, just say hi when you get there. I'd really like to meet you.
So mark it on your calendar (or wherever you mark down dates).
If you could do me a favor and let me know if you're coming I'd appreciate it.
I think that's all.
See you then,
Noah
P.S. - As usual I will make the promise of going to eat tacos with Lou
at San Loco afterwards.
P.P.S. - I am well aware that this will never happen.
Feb 10
2005
Naturally I searched for "noah" and was quite surprised with the findings. (The number on the left is the number of searches for that term done in December.)
6312 - noah wyleI was the number 11 most searched "noah." Awesome.
3226 - noah ark
2877 - noah weather
2626 - yannick noah
2165 - noah hathaway
1862 - noah s ark
1769 - noah webster
1016 - noah bagel
1012 - noah dietrich
910 - noah wylie
679 - noah brier
562 - the librarian noah wyle
547 - noah wiley
512 - noah bastian
493 - noah dombrovski and foley
493 - taran noah smith
456 - noah hunt
452 - noah flood
440 - noah car cover
439 - noah of ark summarize
401 - noah arc
Feb 10
2005
"We have manufactured nukes for self-defence to cope with the Bush administration's ever more undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the [north]," the North Korean foreign ministry said in a statement carried on the state-run Korean Central News Agency.That's not good. That's worse than not good, it's really scary. I don't have much more to say other than that.
The article ends with this:
World's arsenalNo comment needed.The United States More than 5,000 strategic warheads, more than 1,000 tactical (battlefield) weapons and 3,000 reserve and tactical warheads
Russia Nearly 5,000 strategic and 3,500 tactical warheads; more than 11,000 strategic and tactical warheads in store
France Approx 350 strategic warheads
China About 300 strategic and 120 tactical warheads
Britain About 200 strategic warheads
India 45 to 95 nuclear warheads
Pakistan 30 to 50 nuclear warheads
Israel Refuses to confirm it has weapons, but assumed to have up to 200 nuclear warheadsSources: Arms Control Association; Nuclear Threat Initiative.
Feb 10
2005
Iâ€â€and the other blog publishers out thereâ€â€would never let him sell ads against our full-feeds, let alone target our users.Then today, Richard McManus (who's site I enjoy quite a bit), added this:If Bloglines started selling ads against our full-feeds (not the headlines of course… anyone can run the headlines and link back to us like My Yahoo’s reader does, that’s a non-issue because it bring us traffic) I would do two things:
1. We would sue them for breaking our terms of service which say you can’t use our feeds for commercial purposes.
2. I would replace the full-feeds that Bloglines loads and replace them with a special feed that shows users the headline and in the body of the blog post says “Weblogs, Inc. feeds do not support Bloglines, for a full-featured blog reader that allows you to read the full-feed of INSERT BLOG NAME HERE please consider using Newsgator, My Yahoo, and Google Feedreader.
With the benefit of hindsight, I'm wondering now if Mark was 'testing the market' with his announcement that Bloglines would be doing contextual advertising in 2005? He certainly got some swift (and passionate) responses from users - and the outlook wasn't good. Martin Schwimmer, a trademark lawyer, demanded that Bloglines remove his RSS feed from their service and Bloglines quickly complied. The upshot of that case was that although Schwimmer was mostly condemned in the blogosphere for his stance, the fact remained he had highlighted a legal grey area - and Bloglines had backed down.Now I personally have no problem with Bloglines selling contextual advertising against any feed, including my own. My opinion is that if Bloglines gives me a very good product (which I believe it does), I can deal with some advertising so that it remains free as long as it's in good taste and not overwhelming. I left a comment to this effect on Richard's site, it read:
I don't think I have any problem with Bloglines selling ads against my feeds, either. I don't think I understand the issue with it. In my opinion, Bloglines makes the best RSS reader out there and as long as they're not charging me, why should they not make money? Google does it with GMail and everyone still loves it. I might be completely missing something here, but it seems to me that if we're getting a great product it's got to cost something. If that cost were some contextual advertising, I wouldn't have a real problem with it. I don't think. Any thoughts Richard?Now, after giving it some more thought, I realize the problem is not from a consumer side, but from people who are trying to profit off their RSS feed. However, I wonder who's the more powerful party here? If consumers demand feeds and will put up with ads, what would happen if publishers pulled those feeds because of disputes about rights? Who becomes the bad guy there? Is it Calcanis for believing no one but himself should profit off his feed? Or is it Bloglines for believing that they have a right to profit off others information with advertising?
I'm really not sure what the answer to this is, but I think it's an interesting question. I also think it's fascinating to consider the change in the relationship between consumers and companies in today's digital age. For me, I don't have a problem with a company profiting off me as long as they provide a superior product. Take GMail for example. I see no problem with the contextual advertising as long as Google keeps giving me the features I want and more.
I wonder how this one will turn out. Stay tuned.
Feb 9
2005
It's interesting because now that search engines are getting integrated into search engines, whether it be with Google Toolbar or right into the browser as is the case with Firefox, you really don't need to have your home page set to a search engine anymore. Forever I've had my home page set to Yahoo! because it was a good portal to find things like movie listings, TV times or directions. I think this is Yahoo!'s big advantage: that it's a portal rather than just a search engine.
However, lately, and mainly at work where I really don't need TV times or directions, I have changed my home page to something fun. For a while it was TinyMixTapes which is a great music reviews and news site that doesn't have an RSS feed (although I really wish they did and have contacted them to ask them to add one). Yesterday, though, after reading some of the interesting home pages people had, I decided to change mine to a random Wikipedia page. (You can make it your home page with this address: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Randompage)
Anyway, I just found think it's interesting to notice how changes in software technology effect the way we use the web. It's just a reminder that it's an ever-shifting entity in more ways than one.
So, if you've actually gotten to the bottom of this entry, what do you have set as your home page?
Feb 8
2005
1. Turns out the rumors were true and Bloglines was really purchased by Ask Jeeves. You can find out more about the acquisition via the Bloglines FAQ or the Ask Jeeves Blog. This doesn't surprise me at all. Mark Fletcher, the creator and CEO of Bloglines, also created what became Yahoo! Groups, so he knows a thing or two about selling properties. Big difference with this one is that Bloglines is staying just as it is, which is good for me.
2. I watched Supersize Me last night and was impressed (or disturbed). It really brings attention to major problems with eating in America. It's not really anything we didn't know, but it's amazing to see the damage fast food can do. I've been meaning to write some thoughts on eating healthy, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
3. If you're a McLuhan dork like I am you can go here and download MP3s of a record he put out in the 1960s to accompany his book The Medium is the Massage.
4. If you're reading this and still subscribe to an old RSS feed, please subscribe to my new Feedburner feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/noahbriercom). It includes a nice links roundup every day. You know you want it.
Feb 7
2005
Digital Lifestyle Aggregation is the notion of a software layer that unites all of the aspects of digital convergence. Whether it be a media collection at home, a calendar of memeories of road trips or to do lists for a picnic in the park - DLAs (digital lifestyle aggregators) will become a major part of our lives in the future.Essentially, this is compiling all the stuff from the long tail and compiling it in one place. (For those who wanter more long tail info, read Chris Anderson's Wired article or check out his Long Tail blog. While you're at it, you can also read my post, "The Long Tail of Digital Life", if you're interested.)
Unfortunately, I don't really have time to get into everything I want to right now. But if you're interested, go check out those articles and hopefully I'll get working on my ideas for DLA.
Feb 2
2005
Now, for everyone's viewing pleasure, I present my response to Mr. Harvey and crunch:
Roger,
First, thank you for replying to me in such a timely and thoughtful fashion. I really do appreciate that.Do you have any plans to change the policy that "only members in good standing, non-members that have paid a guest fee, or non-members with a valid guest pass are allowed entrance to the facility?"
My problem with this policy, as I understand it, is that there is no opportunity for the person at the desk to use any judgment. While I appreciate the fact that you can't just have anyone running around the club without paying, it was amazing to me that after being a customer for six months I couldn't be given any leeway. As a side note, this was not the message I was getting from Luis and Joe. In fact when Joe came over he said to me that it was Luis' decision.
What is more, I was not informed during my last visit that my membership would be ending. Therefore, I had no way of knowing, when I walked in on Saturday, that I would not be able to work out. Had I been informed that my membership was ending, I most likely would have gotten the info while I was still a member, worked out, and come back next time to sign up with my new plan. I must admit that what made me so upset that day was that I just wanted to go to the gym and never imagined I would run into so much difficulty doing so.
In the end, I guess it bothers me that you have a customer service policy that doesn't allow your employees to make your customers happy. It would not have cost Crunch, Luis or Joe anything to let me work out that day. However, the potential loss is significant -- measured in my ability to communicate my story. On my website, the head of HR and Customer Service for Harman (the audio company that makes JBL and Infinity) left this comment outlining how to compute the value of a happy customer. I found it very interesting and thought you might as well.
---------------
There's a way to compute the value of a Happy Customer:Direct Value
A. Average retail price of product
B. Average customer revenue per purchase
C. Number of purchases per lifetime
D. Lifetime Customer Value (B*C)Indirect Value
E. Customer tells 5 people (D*5)
F. Revenue from referrals (25% of E)
TOTAL VALUE OF HAPPY CUSTOMER (D+F)At Harman Consumer Group, we are very attuned to this formula. The interesting thing is that in our business, it usually costs us to make the customer happy. In your case, Noah, it WOULD NOT HAVE COST CRUNCH ANYTHING to let you work out.
I am increasingly insistent on good customer service and I certainly would not ever entertain going to NY Crunch, for myself or my employees. They certainly don't understand customer service.
Elenor Denker
VP, HR and Customer Service
Harman Consumer Group
---------------You can read the other comments or comment yourself at: http://www.noahbrier.com/archives/2005/01/crunch_fitness.html
I also would like your permission to post your letter (taking out your email and phone number, of course). I think it's important to let people know that you did respond to me in such a thoughtful fashion.
While I very much appreciate the offer of a free month, I would like to see bigger changes made in the way you treat both your customers and employees, before I decided to enter a Crunch Fitness again.
Best regards,
Noah Brier
Hi, I'm Noah. I like writing on, thinking about and making stuff for the internet. I work for The Barbarian Group and am responsible for a few internet experiments like Brand Tags, likemind and My First Tweet. On this site I write about media, marketing, culture, technology and randomness. I like it when people email me.
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Mostly random thought (from Twitter): Wow, I am now getting Ground Zero Mosque comment spam ... I don't know whether to be impressed or disturbed. (31 August 2010, 11:54 am)
Q: What is this site all about?
A: I think Michael Bierut explained it nicely a few years ago in response to people asking him why he didn't write more about design on Design Observer: "But the great thing about graphic design is that it is almost always about something else. Corporate law. Professional football. Art. Politics. Robert Wilson. And if I can't get excited about whatever that something else is, I really have trouble doing good work as a designer. To me, the conclusion is inescapable: the more things you're interested in, the better your work will be." Replace "graphic design" with "media/marketing/technology" (or whatever you'd like to call my field) and you've got my deal.
Q: Where else do you live?
A: Good question. All over the place as a matter of fact. On Tumblr for more randomness, Twitter for short bursts, Dopplr for places I'm going, Delicious for things I'm reading, last.fm for music I'm listening to, Flickr for photos I'm taking and Facebook because I don't really have a choice. (Oh, and Amazon for stuff I want people to buy me.)
Q: I meant that literally. Where do you live?
A: Oh, sorry, Brooklyn, New York is where I call home at the moment.
Q: Any other side projects you'd like to tell us about?
A: As a matter of fact, yes. There's How Much Does it Buy?, a calculator for the rest of us. Holy Crap! Facts (and accompanying Twitter feed) which is pretty much exactly what you'd expect. Da' Bears Blog is, in my opinion, the best Chicago Bears blog on the web (I don't write it, I just helped it get off the ground) and Tweemail is a little PHP script I wrote for getting Twitter updates by email. I'm also always working on a few other things and will let you know when they're ready for public consumption.
Q: Um okay.
A: Yeah, that's a fake question mostly so I can throw in this one other quote I like that I think sums up some of what I try to do here. This one comes from Albert Einstein (or at least the internet says so) and goes something like, "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." Words to live by.
Q: What sites do you like?
A: Well that changes all the time. At the moment I've been digging clusterflock, Beyond the Beyond, Bobulate, Barking up the wrong tree and The Awl.
